Stigmatist Padre Pio Beatified.

The predictions were all wrong. It was rumoured that San Giovanni Rotondo (the town where Padre Pio spent most of his life) would become a ghost town after his death, that its pilgrims would vanish, that it would be all but forgotten with the march of time. This has not happened. Far from diminishing in numbers, the pilgrims have been increasing steadily year after year. Statistics indicated that 4.7 million visitors travelled to San Giovanni Rotondo in 1997, already surpassing the numbers of pilgrims to Santiago, Spain, and Fatima, Portugal. The tourist industry predicts that San Giovanni Rotondo will soon outrival Lourdes in France as Europe's most popular pilgrimage destination.

To prepare for the deluge, the new church currently under construction will accommodate 10,000 people at a time and will cover an area as vast as that of St. Peter's in Rome. The hospital which Padre Pio founded, The House for the Relief of Suffering, is continually expanding. Padre Pio, 30 years after his death, is more popular than ever. He's alive and well at least in terms of cyber-space; it seems that there are more than 1,500 web-sites devoted to him in several different languages throughout the world. More than 200,000 people belong to a global network of Padre Pio prayer groups.

Who is this man, declared by Newsweek's religion editor as Catholicism's most famous contemporary saint, alongside Mother Teresa of Calcutta?

Stigmata 

A number of people, men and women, have received the stigmata, but Padre Pio is the first Catholic priest in history to receive the stigmata, the five bleeding wounds of the Crucified Christ, as did St. Francis of Assisi seven centuries ago. St. Francis was one of the first, but he was a deacon, not a priest. While St. Francis bore the stigmata for only the last two years of his life, Padre Pio endured them for fifty years until shortly before his death at the age of 81 in 1968.

The stigmata are not the only mystical phenomena associated with Padre Pio: a perfume scent emanated from the blood of the wounds, violating all biological laws. Moreover, he was endowed with the gift of bilocation, the ability to be present in two places at once. Again, he was reported to be able to "read hearts"-that is, he was able to see into the souls of some penitents and knew their sins without their having to utter a word. Finally, more than a thousand physical cures have been attributed to his intercession. His spiritual cures and conversions have been innumerable.

As if this were not enough, it is reported that he had frequent visions and communications with Jesus, Mary, and his Guardian Angel throughout his life. He was tormented physically as well as spiritually by the devil and endured epic struggles with this pernicious enemy; his battered and bloodied body revealed the evidence of some of these nocturnal assaults. He was, at times, able to predict the future: after hearing the confession in 1947 of a newly ordained priest named Karol Wojtyla, it is reported that he told the young penitent, "One day you will be Pope."

Once word of the stigmata reached the press, Padre Pio became famous. The news spread like wildfire, first in Italy, then throughout the world. While still a young priest, he was receiving more than two hundred letters a day. So many people flocked to his confessional that tickets had to be issued. Even before his death, people were speaking of his canonization. It is estimated that at least 100,000 mourners attended his funeral.

His beginnings were humble. He was born in the small town of Pietrelcina, Italy, in the province of Benevento in 1887. He was baptized Francesco in honour of St. Francis of Assisi. He was one of eight children of Grazio, a farmer, and his wife, Maria Forgione. They were poor country people who were devout and loving Catholic parents. At the age of 15 he entered the Capuchin Franciscan monastery at Morcone to prepare for the novitiate. He was ordained to the priesthood in 1910 after completing seven years of study. Henceforth he became known as Padre Pio. When he felt called to the priesthood, his father spared no expense in helping him to achieve his goal and, in fact, emigrated alone to the United States for several years to obtain employment to provide his son with the financial means to continue his education. (Temporary emigration to the United States was a practice not uncommom to the men of Southern Italy at that time.) It was in 1918 that he received the stigmata, a miracle which would set him forever after on the world stage.

Personality

Who was he? What was he like? Was he some sort of ethereal creature, living in the clouds, a tad eccentric? Perhaps even a loner?

His fellow friars and those who knew him best describe him as completely humble, down to earth and natural, as ordinary in every way as "someone you could go fishing with." It seemed that people loved to be with him! He was fond of jokes and playing pranks and was almost always cheerful. "Whenever he would be away," recalls his fellow friar Padre Guglielmo, "his absence always left a great void in our hearts and we lived in hope that these absences would not be long."

This calls to mind the testimonies regarding the popularity of St. Teresa of Avila, who abhorred "gloomy-faced nuns!" Once, for example, after meeting a pilgrim with long hair, Padre Pio remarked to a fellow priest, "Did you get a load of that fellow's hair?" And after celebrating a wedding, commenting on the bride's fingernails, he said ,"She could really scratch your eyes out with those!" When an adoring woman grabbed his arm and refused to relent, he said, "All right, take it, you can have it, but let me go!" When sceptics suggested that his stigmata could well be the result of auto-suggestion or wishful thinking, he retorted: "Go out to the fields and look very closely at a bull. Concentrate on him with all your might and see if you start to grow horns!"

Bernard Ruffin, the author of Padre Pio: The True Story, after interviewing many people who knew Padre Pio, said that it was his warm human qualities, rather than his mystical "charisma", which left the strongest impression on people. He quotes Padre Damaso, a contemporary of Padre Pio's, who found him "a little different from the others. He was more lovable and he knew how to say just the right thing. He would suggest something in the way of advice in a very sweet manner." Although he could be abrasive and curt with penitents whom he found obstinate or insincere, he generally was the most pastoral of priests.

Mystical charisms

It was his mystical "charisma" however, rather than his "warm, human qualities" which placed him on the world-wide stage. Probably one of the most extraordinary and unusual of his gifts was that of bilocation, a state in which a person can be situated in more than one place at once. This was a gift he shared with several other saints such as St. Anthony of Padua, St. Alphonsus of Liguori, St. Bridget, St. Rita of Cascia, and St. Teresa of Avila.

Padre Carmelo of Sessano, Father Guardian at San Giovanni Rotondo, told an interviewer in the 1950's that Padre Pio was appearing, in bilocation, "all over the place." He recounted an incident in 1953 which occurred while he and Padre Pio were attending an evening concert together. The next day he met a sick man in the town who thanked him for allowing Padre Pio to visit him the previous evening. When asked the time of the visit, he discovered it was the same time that they were both at the concert, yet the man's entire family attested to the fact that Padre Pio was physically present in their house!

Father Dominic Meyer, Padre Pio's rather curt, no-nonsense American secretary, recounted another incident to his cousin, the Archbishop of Milwaukee. He spoke of a lay brother, Fra Daniele, who was a cancer patient at Regina Elena Hospital in Rome. On the evening of his operation Padre Pio appeared at his bedside and urged him to have no fear. The lay brother kissed Padre Pio's hand as he left. Yet all this time Padre Pio was at the friary in San Giovanni Rotondo! There are countless episodes of this nature from all parts of the world, many which have been verified by objective, reliable witnesses and circumstances. Generally, Padre Pio would "bilocate" to assist people on their death-beds, to relieve the suffering of the sick and to provide comfort, and to help people in great moral and spiritual crises.

The most spectacular, by far, were the numerous "sightings" of Padre Pio which were confirmed by American and English aviators flying bombing missions over Italy in World War II. Reports were widespread of a brown-robed monk with arms outstretched appearing in the sky as the pilots were preparing to drop bombs on San Giovanni Rotondo or nearby Foggia. So astounded were the pilots that the bombing missions would be aborted forthwith!

As dramatic as the incidents of bilocation were, it was the stigmata which attracted the attention of a spiritually hungry world. It is interesting to note that there were no recorded cases of the stigmata in history until the thirteenth century. In 1224, while St. Francis of Assisi was praying in ecstasy on Mount Alverno, he received the five wounds of Our Lord. For the next seven centuries at least 400 cases of the stigmata have been recorded.

The distribution and the extent of the wounds vary from person to person: some bore only the wound in the side; others, only the crown of thorns; whereas a few bore all five of the wounds of Christ. The duration varies as well: some of the wounds remain for only a short time, in others, they remained for years. Most of the recipients are female, Catholic and Italian.

It was while Padre Pio was praying before a picture of one of these holy women, St. Veronica Giuliani, that he received the stigmata. She was a Capuchin nun who had received all five of the wounds, as had St. Gemma Galgani, a laywoman nine years Padre Pio's senior. St. Gemma not only received the stigmata but shared some of the other mystical gifts of Padre Pio as well (such as communication with her guardian angel).

The Wounds

Although Padre Pio's wounds bled persistently for almost 50 years, they disappeared shortly before his death, leaving no traces or scars! The wounds in his hands were witnessed by thousands of people as they attended his Masses and visited him at the friary of San Giovanni Rotondo. Padre Alessio Parente, a Capuchin friar who attended Padre Pio in his old age, stated in a 1978 interview in Washington, DC, that the stigmata were "very scary, very horrible to look at." He records that he had always wanted to see the wounds, but once he saw them he prayed, "God, don't ever let me see them again."

What did the wounds look like? How were they like those of Christ? Although Christ's wounds apparently pierced his wrists, Padre Pio's appeared in the centre of his palms. When questioned about this, Pio said that he couldn't be compared to Our Lord! Padre Alessio stated that the wounds on the hands were about one-half inch deep, whereas Dr. Andrea Cardone, a general practitioner from Pietrelcina, signed a statement in 1968 alleging that the wounds "pierced the palms of the hands completely through so much that one could see light through them."

The wounds on the feet were seen and described much less frequently. The feet were described as bearing lesions on both the top surface and the corresponding positions on the soles. Witnesses testify that the wound in the side was formed in the shape of a cross. At certain times, on Fridays and particularly in Lent, the wounds bled more profusely. Blood tests during the 1950's revealed that Padre Pio's blood-work was normal and that he was not suffering from anemia, despite the constant loss of blood. Medical witnesses have stated that Padre Pio lost a cupful of blood daily from the wound in his side. That he suffered extensively from the wounds was evident in his halting gait and his facial expressions, especially while he was saying Mass. When asked by an observer if the stigmata were painful, he retorted, "Do you think that the Lord gave them to me for a decoration?"

It is said that God raises up the saints that are needed for the times: just as St. Teresa of Avila appeared at the time of the Protestant Reformation and St. Francis of Assisi was born to a world desperately in need of spiritual reform, so too was Padre Pio born at this time in history. And what a time it was!

Padre Pio joined the Capuchin Order (the most radically conservative of the three orders whose origins can be traced to St. Francis of Assisi) at a time when the Order was being revived after suffering a period of intense anti-clerical persecution in Italy. In 1866 the Italian government actually ordered the dissolution of all religious orders as well as the confiscation of their properties. Several years later, they relented and religious orders were allowed once again. It was at this time, in 1903, that Padre Pio joined the Order.

Padre Pio was living at San Giovanni Rotondo at the time of the Second Vatican Council. It is said that many of the bishops from the Council would pay him visits on a regular basis. In an era when the Catholic faith was being eroded in the name of the "Spirit of Vatican II" and Modernist ideas proliferated even among the clergy, Padre Pio's faith and piety most resembled those of his fellow priest of the previous century, the Cure of Ars. Like him, Padre Pio spent long hours in the confessional, often more than twelve hours a day. It is said that he probably heard more than a million confessions in his lifetime.

Witnesses give evidence that beside Padre Pio's bed were three pictures: St. Michael was on one side, the Blessed Virgin was in the middle, and the pope was on the other sude. He adjusted his window blind so that the first light of morning would shine on the picture of the Holy Father. Padre Pio was a true son of the Church and it is believed by many that his beatification will help to promote a return of orthodoxy to his beloved Catholic Church.

Padre Gerardo Di Flumeri, Vice-Postulator of Padre Pio's Cause of Canonization, stated, "Padre Pio is the testimony of the Passion of Christ in this 20th century of materialism and technological progress." Padre Pio was consumed with the salvation of souls; for this purpose he gave himself to God. God has accepted his offering. He will be beatified on May 2, 1999.

Reference:

Ruffin, Bernard. Padre Pio: The True Story. Huntington, Indiana: Our Sunday Visitor Publications, 1991, 444 pages.

Mary Hansen lives in Barrie, Ontario. Her last contribution to Catholic Insight was on St. Therese of Lisieux.